Fire in Paradise
by Windteller
Summary: A tale that may prove a formidable challenge for Captain Picard, the great humanist. Two veterans of a war that never was appear in his universe, confused and lost. One has sacrificed her humanity for the sake of victory, the other may have sacrificed her sanity. As they battle terrible foes to learn the truth, Picard must wonder. Is this really the humanity he fought so hard for?
1. Ep 0 Chapter 1: Prometheus

_**Author's note:** This fiction is written with three key elements in mind. The story must no betray any lore of both universe, Readers who are unfamiliar with either universe of the crossover must not be lost or confused and Readers must be entertained. Should any of these elements be lacking, please inform me. I'll give you the story you deserve._

* * *

It was the calm humming that disturbed her sleep. Her dreams faded away, replaced by a deep artificial rhythm, invading her mind as she came closer and closer to consciousness.

Before all thoughts began to emerge, she fell the warm metallic floor underneath her. The familiar heat of a cockpit. A space vessel.

Prometheus.

She woke up violently, her head spinning in pain after the shock. The shock? Around her, the small cockpit dimly lit by the emergency light was showing signs of serious external damage. But there was no indication of any breach, otherwise she would be dead and frozen.

Crawling in the tight space, she lifted herself near the console, her legs seemingly paralysed, but she didn't cared why. She had one single focus. Activate the distress signal.

Her hand brushed the orange holo console that lit as clearly as if nothing had happened. The civilised voice of a VI resonated.

 _-Emergency lock-down. Please log in supreme authorisation to access._

 _-XCV N7 2-32,_ she said as loud as she could. _Commander Shepard, Alliance military._

* * *

It took several minutes for Sarah Shepard to extract all the data out of the VI, but even then, she wasn't sure what happened.

She was on board a Prometheus, a nigh indestructible escape pod in the form of an egg. Developed by the Alliance military in cooperation with SED (Salarian Exploration Division), those had only been installed in Salarian cruisers as far as she could tell.

Her head spin. It was hard to think, hard to remember.

She had to move.

Her muscle control had progressively came back and she could use her legs without any difficulty, but her right arm was still unsure and shaking. Her left however was perfectly fine, probably due to the fact that it was entirely artificial. Slender design, Quarian technology. The scars of the hardest battle of her life.

With it, she tied her dark red hair back in a ponytail and launched a complete diagnostic of the surroundings. The Egg was sealed and opaque, but there was enough sensors to scan for anything dangerous around it.

While the VI was processing the info, she checked the inside. While badly damaged, everything was still functional. Her own armour was intact, and so were her weapons and omnitool, to her relief. But she was unable to make contact with anyone outside. Instead, she only received static.

 _-Analysis complete,_ said the VI in his calm demeanour. _Position: unknown. The atmosphere is breathable, gravity to 1g, scans indicates a fully functional space station suitable for human life. Origin unknown_

 _-We crashed into a space station?_

 _-The scans indicate you are currently inside the space station. There are no breach detected nor any visible point of entry. The immediate surrounding is an empty room._

The commander was perplexed. She was in an escape pod inside a space station, with no one answering the comms. There was nothing more she could do while prisoner of the Prometheus, it was time to explore.

 _-VI,_ she said while putting her helmet and arming her N7 Valiant rifle, _continue scanning and synch with my omnitool. Update status every 5 minutes, I want comprehensive reports and remote access to the distress call._

 _-Very well, logging you out Commander._

Her hand grabbed her battle worn pistol, a dark and red HMWP X, first and last gift of the Spectre bureau. Space station meant close combat. Assume hostile. Survive first, ask later.

She took a deep breath and opened the hatch.

* * *

Head spinning, legs not working, pain all over.

Focus.

Lauren Shepard, already in her complete armour, was trying to make sense of the data that was hurling at her through the VI. She had crashed somewhere... but where was she? She tried to remember, but couldn't. She only felt confusion, and tried to shake herself back to full speed.

She was in a space pod, that was for sure, and a ruined one at that. The VI was beginning to diagnose the state of the vehicle.

 _-Belay that,_ she muttered while forcing her legs to move despite the pain. _What's outside?_

 _-Preliminary scans indicate an artificial construct. There are no vacuum or toxic component detectable at this time._

 _-Anyone outside? Hostile or otherwise?_

 _-Insufficient Data Commander._

Lauren swore under her breath. It reminded her of the N5 selection tests, she had been drugged and sent into an out of control ship with potential hostiles all over. She had to crash it on a planet and survive, not sure on how she got here in the first place or where she was. She had survived that, she would go through this too.

Her body slowly returned under her command again, she checked her equipment. Weapons, thermoclips, rations, everything was there. She checked her sealed helmet, a shiver running down her spine as she recalled the time when she... died. You wasn't going to die twice because of equipment failure.

The familiar sensation of the N7 Valkyrie in her arms reassured her. It was stocked, ready to fire, and had saved her life throughout her most trying experiences. She even had a hand in it final design, and modded it to fit her style perfectly.

And her style was shoot to kill.

With one hand, she opened the hatch, and a small hole on the floor was blasted away.

The metallic door buried itself in what seemed like a soil, crushing some dried up plants beneath it. Shepard tried to slip through, but her legs failed her and she stumbled out, gun in hand. There was, however, no one outside, only an immense low-ceiling artificial garden. And abandoned by the looks what tried to grow there.

Lauren took a deep breath and got up. There was no sign of sentry, of camera or even activity. Only the artificial lights were on. She took a few step forward and looked back on her vessel. Her Prometheus was in bad shape indeed, it was like it had been send into an asteroid field. There were marks of impact everywhere, but no sign from weapon origin.

And most of all, no sign of any breach in the room. It was as if it had been just left there, or that they build the station around it. It made no sense, and she didn't liked it one bit. She rigged the pod with explosives, just in case, and went out to explore the station.

* * *

Camouflaged under her cloak, Sarah had swiftly asserted her surroundings, and her findings were few and puzzling.

Through exploration and the scans of the Prometheus, she had determined that the Space Station was as big as a little city in the form of a spinning top. And it seemed like a giant coffin.

The walls, the floors, everything was bright white and bare. Absolutely pure and clean. It was sickening.

As far as she could tell, she was in a level dedicated to farming. Most of the rooms were similar to the one she arrived in, and there seemed to be hundreds of them. The other rooms may have had equipment or even furniture but everything that wasn't fixed to the ground had been taken away. Even the computers in the wall had been stripped of every components.

But the strangest thing was that she wasn't recognizing anything. It had obviously been made by a human-size species, but there was no insignia she could recognize, nor the Alliance nor any organisations, alien or otherwise. And the tech was also intriguing. The computers may have had been stripped, but when she tried to rig herself to the central web, she couldn't find any viable port for VI.

She had no idea who built the station, where those people were or even how she got there in the first place. Her pod seemed to have simply been put there, in the middle of what seemed to be an artificial garden, and there was nothing else.

But there was one thing for certain. She was not alone.

The life support was functional, even if it was on a strange setting, every room were still supplied with a steady amount of power and even the elevators were still working. But most of all she noticed traces of very recent passage. Doors left open, distant sound reverberating, disturbed debris on the ground, there was at least one person, probably a scavenger, in those corridors. And he may had answers.

The trail seemed easy to follow, at first, but her as she walked along the white walls, silently approaching the source of the disturbance, she felt uneasy. It was a smell of familiarity, the way the doors were left just not close enough to be seen, how the clues were just at the right place to choose the right turn.

She knew this feeling, she had felt it many times. It was the feeling of being the prey.

Shepard crouched and thought for a moment. How could she outmanoeuvre her unseen adversary?

Typing on her omnitool, she gathered the info of the scans and projected a 3d map of her surroundings. From this new perspective, she realised that she was progressively being led to the centre of that level, some kind of large circular room, heavily supplied in computer nods, although those were probably absent like the rest.

She couldn't tell if her adversary was conscious of her, or was simply making sure that any potential threat would be led to a kill zone. In both cases, there was something in that central room, and even a trap would be enough for Shepard to break the stalemate.

For some reasons, the station was using bulky cables to supply power, and most of those had been taken away. That made the conduits were they were supposed to be empty, and a passage toward the central hub. An unexpected one, she was hoping. She easily removed he trap doors to the cable conduits and sneaked in with agility. Crawling through it as carefully as she could, she manoeuvre herself around the tight dark space with absolutely no visibility, trusting her maps to guide her to her destination.

The maze seemed endless, but finally she had arrived. The tight tunnel became a large octagonal sub level, just beneath the ground of the main room. It must had been filled with cables at one point, but now it was just a simple empty crawling space.

Progressing as silently as a predator stalking her prey, she moved in the dark sub-level, distinguishing the access port to the room above by the light filtering through the grids. She activated her omnitool, warping her right arm in the soft orange glow of an holoconsole. Using the micro construction tools inside her armour, she produced a recording camera drone. Nothing flashy, or even visible to the human eye, just a camera the size of a fly, standing on the top of her finger. Slowly, she slid it through a grid and activated it.

In her helmet, she saw the room. It was a large empty octagon, with visible traces of tearing. There must had been a lot of stuff there, and but even those who were build within the walls had been tore and stripped. There was seemingly nothing.

Except one person, at least three mines.

She couldn't get a good look at her adversary, but he had barricaded all but two doors within the hub and had placed mines within close range of the possible entry. Sarah silently noted that everything had been done perfectly, from the false trail, to the traps and even the escape routes. Should had Shepard followed the trail, thinking her prey at her mercy, she would have been overwhelmed by the mines alone, and let's not speak of the weapons the "prey" was possibly carrying.

However, he wasn't aware of the critical flaw of his fortress.

And that was Sarah's way to victory.

* * *

The trap was set.

Lauren was crouched in the big empty room, ready to aim at whatever the hell was going to get through those doors. She had been scouting the level for 30 minutes when she finally found what seemed to be the central control room for the plants. Like in all other rooms, it was empty, and laid bare of any indication of what was going on. However, she knew she wasn't alone.

She may had been a bit reckless in her search, she was far from being an idiot, and had left little presents behind her. Omnitool mines modified as motion detectors, gifts of Garrus. Everywhere she went, she had left those little spy behind, carefully camouflaged, and 30 minutes after she had left her pod they emitted their warnings.

It was probably only one person, and he was searching considering his movements, but searching for what? Lauren decided that interrogation was the only way to go, and put a little trail towards her, and her trap.

And then, nothing. No motion, no sound, no trace of anything anywhere. The other guy had just vanished.

The whole thing began dangerously to feel like Omega during the Adjudant crisis. Tight corridors, no visual, unknown enemy you know is stalking you... Lauren knew that the worst thing to do was to move and blow every chance she had of getting a reading again. So she waited, still, patiently.

Until all hell broke loose.

Her mines suddenly exploded all at once, releasing their concussive blast in a terrible shock wave and filling the room with smoke. The unexpected attack triggered Lauren's most basic survival instincts and she rolled on the side, her body brutally shaken by a surge of fear and adrenaline.

It was here! But where!?

Two shot, from inside the room. The first one exploded in her face, stopped merely millimetres in front of her head by her kinetic shield. Destroying in it one go. The second one missed her legs by an hair, as Lauren charged head first toward the hidden enemy, her vision blurred, her blood on fire. It wasn't Omega. It was Torfan, all over again.

The bold move would prove successful as the commander clashed with a form in the smoke, sending them both rolling on the ground, tangled in a violent struggle to get the upper hand. Her mind went blank as she tried to keep her enemy in lock while regaining her own balance, but he was a slippery one.

Rotating himself inside the lock with an uncanny agility, he broke from Lauren's grasp and tried to place himself above her, his rifle dangerously approaching her head. With the strength of a bull, Shepard placed her feet on his stomach and send him flying back. Somewhere beyond the thick curtain of smoke, he crashed violently on the wall, losing his rifle in the process. Lauren still had hers.

 _ **-Move and you're dead!**_ She screamed, aiming at the indistinct form.

Only to have her Valkyrie overheat system flared up and automatically locked itself, transforming the machine of death into a glorified crowbar.

The riposte came like lightening. An impact of tremendous strength smashed on her helmet, sending her back temporary blind for the sheer shock, despite the armour. Her weapons was then tore from her hands and thrown aside. A brief vision of death came clear to her, fear took hold of all her senses. And she refuses it. With all the fury she could muster, Lauren activated her omniblade. A red omnitool appeared on her right arm, creating instantly a white hot blade out of thin air with which she slashed furiously in front of her. She nearly decapitated her opponent had he not acrobatically rolled back, but while her blade broke down as quickly as it had been created, Lauren wasn't finished.

She charged head first to prevent the slippery one from gaining a better position, ready to pierce his heart. He was too dangerous to be kept alive.

And suddenly, Shepard froze still. The smoke was slowly dissipating, revealing the shadow that attacker, back to the wall, an outdated pistol in her hands aiming for her, yet not shooting. It was a woman, in full armour, including the helmet. She was wearing an Armax Arsenal set, made specially for snipers and scouts and a very expensive one. And her arm could have been even more expensive. An entirely artificial member, not unlike Saren's, but with five fingers and a slender look. But Lauren didn't stopped her assault because of this.

On her white with blue strips armour, her attacker was showing the Council Spectre's insignia. And her pistol was an HMWP X, Spectre pistol from before the thermoclips.

 _-I'm warning you Asari,_ she grunted, _I have the bad habit of killing Spectres who get in my way... So you better answer my question before it gets ugly, fast._

The Asari in white armour simply got up, her weapon still focused on the human. If she had any fear, she didn't show it. But they both knew that the weapon only offered her a small upper hand, and the situation could rapidly turns upside down.

 _-You N7?_ Asked the Spectre with a steady voice.

 _-I ask the questions here,_ boldly replied the woman with a gun pointed at her head. _What's a council Spectre doing here? And where the hell is here?_

Without a word, the Spectre taped on the side of her helmet with her Geth-like arm, and unsealed her armour. The frontal plate retreated back inside the sides, revealing the Spectre's face. And to Shepard's increasing surprise, it wasn't an Asari. It was a human. Another human Spectre?

The human looked like a ghost, her skin was as pale as her armour, and the form of her bones were clearly visible on her face, as if she had been malnourished. However her eyes were of a bright green, staring at her without any sign of weakness.

 _-I'm Commander Shepard, Council Spectre and Alliance military. Who are you?_


	2. Chapter 2: The impossible threat

This soldier wasn't kidding around. Despite having her own ambush turned against her, she still managed to fight to a stalemate. And skill and strength were astounding, the dull pain throbbing in her chest and back was proof of that. Her equipment was also top notch, with an N7 Valkyrie and the dreaded Hane-Kedar armour, synching the muscle control with the targeting algorithms. With those two combined, you barely had to aim. Sarah was glad she didn't let her prey take even once shot.

For the moment, the gun was a poor advantage against such a beast, but Sarah still had her cloak should things turned south.

She had negotiated in worse conditions.

She revealed her face and her name, hoping it would tip the balance in her favour. The N7 was denying knowing where they were, and it was possible after all, but she'd rather not be fooled. If saving the galaxy had any perks, it was bringing a certain aura of respect.

That and the galaxy was saved.

However, the slow laugh she heard from behind the helmet was telling her the N7 wasn't impressed.

 _-Cerberus really did a poor job this time,_ she said, _or did you escaped the clone batch before you were completely cooked?_

The commander was confused for a second. What was that soldier talking about.

 _-Wait... you think I'm a... clone?_

 _-And one even uglier than the last one. **I** am the only Shepard._

The woman took her helmet off, showing her face at last.

She had dark hair falling just above her shoulders, and eyes of a clearest blue. But her skin was... ravaged. Sarah could see the traces of scarification all over her, forming a pattern. A very familiar pattern.

While not glowing anymore, there was no doubt it was the trace of the Lazarus Project, the one that had only one subject. Her. And even if there had been another, the scars wouldn't be so exactly at the places.

The woman grinned.

And suddenly charged. To slow however, as Sarah never let her guard down. Cloaking away, she slipped through the other's assault, rolled and grabbed her rifle. But as soon as she turned to face her attacker, she saw the barrel of the Valkyrie pointing at her general direction. Despite how bulky she looked, the other Shepard was as fast as she was and had grabbed her own weapon.

The concussive shot was deafening, and the shock sent her on her back, disabling her cloak.

She got up and aimed in one movement, and suddenly, they were both aiming at the other, each with a real chance of dealing a killing blow.

 _-That's better,_ sternly stated the N7. _Now, answer me before I turn you into a bloody pulp. Who sent you and where am I?_

 _-I could ask you the same. I have no idea where we are, but I'm fairly certain I'm no clone._

 _-That so,_ she mocked

Sarah was holding her confusion firmly in check, flooding her own mind with tactical analysis and diplomatic possibilities. She knew she wasn't a clone. But she may not need to prove it.

 _-So you're Shepard,_ she began. _How's war going?_

 _-Reapers are dead, and so will you be if you don't give me a good reason not to shoot._

 _-How are the dreams?_

The other froze still. Sarah was both relieved and scared and the implication of her line of reasoning.

 _-What dreams?_ Tried to bluff the other one.

 _-It's written all over your face. You still dream of it don't you? Not the boy. Not anymore. You dream of colours that don't exists. Places you've never been. And... of those last words, over and over again._

 _-How do you know this? No one know this!_

 _-I do. I dream of it too._

Sarah took a chance and slowly lowered her weapon. Just in case though, she discreetly armed her hacking device and tuned it to disrupt the lights.

 _-I don't know where we are, or what the hell is going on. But if you still dream of Anderson's last words every time you shut your eyes, then you know I'm no clone._

And just like that, the other one lowered her own weapon. She looked as confused as Sarah felt. Nothing made any sense since she woke up. But she had to stay focused. Whoever that woman in front of her really was, she was no clone. And neither was Sarah.

So they were both soldiers in hostile territory.

No time to stand idle.

In front of her, the other Shepard seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion. She simply said.

 _-Alright, you win this round "Shepard". How did you get here?_

 _-Can't remember, it's all blurry. I just remember waking up in the Prometheus, damaged and inside this station._

 _-Same here, can't bring any memory back._

 _-Wait, I had the VI run diagnostics and scans while I was away, maybe it has found something._

Sarah opened her omnitool and contacted the Prometheus's VI. The hologram appeared from the back of her wrist.

 _-VI, give me your analysis of the events as far as you can go back._

 _-I have restored 78% of the data Commander. The activation of the escape pod began as a manual command by yourself. My scans indicate that it was inside a critically damaged Salarian Exploration Ship, designation unknown, somewhere within the Perseus Veil._

The other Shepard muttered something, but didn't seemed willing to share it.

The VI continued.

 _-The data starts to erodes at this point. The sensors detected a brief surge of gravitational pressure combined with bombardments of unknown radiations blinding the sensors, and provoking an emergency lockdown for 6 minute 48 seconds. The lockdown was lifted by you._

And that was all, nothing more. Sarah emitted a disappointed sigh. She had hoped that the informations would be of more use, maybe trigger something inside her, but there was nothing. Nothing more than the feeling of her head being crushed as she was lift from her seat inside the pod and banged on the side.

She knew that if the sensors had no idea what happened, knowing the context held no promise of enlightening her. Still, she hated the thought of having a piece of the puzzle just out of reach.

* * *

The situation was extremely confusing. Lauren had before her another Commander Shepard. At first she thought that it was just an extremely well made clone, with the same neural pathways and so, the same knowledge. But then why the hell the different face? The feeling of uneasiness only grew as the VI of "her" Prometheus mentioned the Perseus Veil. She remembered it. A little. Vague images, words floating in the air, out of their conversations.

But it was the idea that somehow this person in front of her was... Shepard.

She tried to shake the feeling, there were other priorities she had to focus.

Could she trust this woman? No. Of course not.

Could she afford to let her loose? Absolutely not.

She had to... They had to...

 _-We must contact the Alliance, or any vessel nearby._

 _-Already doing it, so far nothing. Can't even seem to find a comm buoy, so it transmitting in the vacuum hoping someone listen._

 _-How about he comms here? There must be some way to contact people outside._

 _-Maybe, if it hasn't been stripped like everything here. With luck, it will bring us to..._

And luck abandoned them. A distant detonation made the walls shake, a shiver ran through Lauren as she recognized the explosion.

 _-You, Techie, you went alone?_

 _-Yeah, what was that?_

 _-I rigged my pod._ Lauren put her helmet back. _We are not alone._

It took them a few minutes to hurry back to Lauren's pod. She was on point, to her great discomfort. Having someone she didn't trust in her back made her edgy, and leading her to her pod was against her better judgement. But this was no time to be picky. She caught the other one several time glancing when they had the luxury of looking elsewhere than straight forward. Even through her helmet, she could see that the situation was troubling her too.

That was reassuring, and frightening at the same time.

The finally got to the garden section. The sound of metal clawing at metal could be heard echoing through the corridor. A hand tapped on Lauren's shoulders. The Techie was asking by hand sign to scout ahead and take a firing position with her rifle. She refused. There was no way she got the chance to get invisible on her.

Weapons ready, they followed the sound and arrived at the door. It was open, and they could now hear that the noises were accompanied by the sound of heavy walk on the ground.

Lauren took a deep breath, and went in first.

In the big and previously empty room was her pod. Or what was left of it. Crawling around it like a swarm of black metallic worms were a dozen of humanoid cyborgs abomination. What skin was visible on their flesh and body was grey and dry, deformed by gory cyber implants sticking out of their flesh and suit. They looked like corpses whose exoskeleton, fused to their bone, was making move in a slow and jerky dance. Their hands, or what was left of them, were merely mechanical protuberance armed with tools.

With which they were tearing the Prometheus apart.

Without a second thought, Lauren armed her weapon, set it on disruptor ammo, and took a shot at the first in line. Two bullets flew through the air and land in a circle the size of a penny, right in the back of the head of one of the monstrosity. The cyborg's muscles suddenly contracted as the electrical shock spread through his body, and he fell face first on the ground.

The other Shepard had soon done the same. On disruptor shot pierced the gross eye implant, sending its owner flying back with a hole the size of a golf ball in the head.

Whatever those things were, they had no kinetic barrier.

Three more shots landed on the first to take notice of them, piercing right where his heart should have been. It fell too, but strangely took his time, as if his mechanical part was trying to support the rest of the body alone. Now all of them were turning their attention toward the door and the intruder.

They simply walked toward them. All nine of them, with the same cold an uncaring determination, their "hands" extended toward them. The Spectres picked their shot, but to their surprise, the disruptor enhancement had suddenly no longer any effect. As their bullets hurled towards the dead machines, a shield appeared to drain them of voltage. And they were tough to kill. Not only their armour was thick, but they seemed devoid of pain or vital organs to shoot at.

They simply endured, pointing their shredder tools forward, always progressing towards them. The Prometheus was still well in sight, its plating ripped open in a matter of minute. Lauren thought for an instant of what her own fate would be if they got too close. And that was enough. She armed a grenade and threw it in the mindless mob, jumping to cover. The bast was devastating, yet extremely localised. Everything within ten meters was obliterated by shrapnel combined with a mass effect induced force field that contained and reverberated the shock wave within it. It lasted but a second, but it decimated them all in one sweep.

The room had now one black crater, the metal of the floor red hot of all the energy produced. The cyborg had endured horribly well considering, they seemed untouched by the tremendous heat, but had been lacerated by the debris and the pure shock of the blast. And despite being dismembered, they were still trying to move, like puppets, reaching out blindly for something to kill.

They were made short work of.

Lauren then hurried to the Prometheus while the other gal seemed to take a look around. It was a wreak, but an oddly ordered one. Whatever those things were, they were taking the ship apart very methodically. Now she knew what had happened to everything else on that level. It had been collected. But to what end?

With a smirk, she noticed that not everything had been taken away. Most notably her weapon cache. She had taken a lot of equipment, but was reluctant to bring everything with her in her scouting mission. Now that she had a taste of what was lurking around, she wouldn't mind having her firepower close at hand, even if it slowed her down a bit.

 _-Hey!_ The other Shepard yelled from the other side of the room. _We may have a very big problem here._

Fixing her arsenal on her armour, Lauren went back. Her Prometheus was just a pile of rubble now, and it's not like it was of any use anyway. The other one was analysing what was left by their cybernetic attackers.

 _-What's up Techie?_

 _-The name's Shepard. And there's not enough debris here to account for all the parts that were taken from your pod._

 _-I noticed. There must be more of them._

 _-And they have our technology._

 _-So what?_

Techie seemed to be thinking for a time. She then took a determined look.

 _-I'm going back to my pod._

 _-Our priority is getting out of here, who cares if they collect a portion of our technology._

 _-We are against an unknown enemy, maybe even an alien life form or some sort of invading AI. The protocols are clear, we must not let them know our technological capabilities._

God this woman was worse than an instructor. Spewing the codes as if it was of any relevance to actual combat. How did she survived the Reaper war? How many had died because she couldn't let go of her stupid...

No, it was not the time to think like that. She was right. Annoyingly so, but right. Cold calculations began to form in her mind. She was analysing her situation, determining the best course of action. The most efficient one.

 _-Do you detect any central energy source? Hangar bays, or escape pods?_

 _-What are you thinking?_

 _-I'm thinking about destroying the place, and get the hell out before we die in it too._

 _-Seems a little... extreme. And premature. We don't know who else is in the station._

 _-We may not have enough ammo for those things, and your little relic here isn't going to do you much good. So I ask again. Energy source, escape routes._

The other one checked on the holomap, downloading it to Shepard's omnitool.

 _-There seems to be a sort of alcove at the base of the station. Could be a bay. And the readings indicate energy spikes at level 8._

 _-I'll go there. You, you stay out of my way._

 _-Splitting. What a brilliant tactic,_ snarked the other Shepard.

Lauren contained he explosion of her rage and spoke in aslow, deep and threatening voice.

 _-Listen your majesty, I've got a job to do and no fuck to give. You either fall in line... or get out._

A heavy silence fell in the room. Lauren couldn't explained her sudden outburst, but she didn't care much either. She couldn't watch her back all the time while doing her mission. And she couldn't waste time killing or restraining the other one.

The pale woman stared at her with eyes of stone. Lauren could feel the fury aching to explode behind those emeralds. But she blinked, and the fury vanished.

 _-I'm keeping contact in case I make any progress._

 _-Good for you Techie._

 _-Don't die too quickly, Cutie pie,_ she added while turning her back on her.

And she left the room, disappearing in the corner.

Lauren took a deep breath and readied her weapons.

Level 8, in the thick of it.


	3. Chapter 3: A dance with Death

She made sure she wasn't followed, but Sarah was convinced the... other Shepard was set on going the other way. What a strange and confusing encounter, and she didn't had the luxury of appreciating it. The situation had evolved dramatically in a matter of minutes, and she didn't had the time to assimilate everything. She knew what he had to do.

Protect the technology, find a way out.

Preferably before "Cutie pie" began to makes things explodes. Sarah had a hunch she wouldn't hesitate to kill them both.

That woman was making her... angry somehow. And relieved. She had so many conflicting emotions, and apparently the other wasn't holding her lovingly in her heart either. Maybe it was just upsetting to fathom the idea of another Shepard, whatever her origin.

She wished she could talk to someone about it.

She wished Liara was there.

 _Head into battle soldier!_

A hundred meters away from the objective, and maybe another horde of cyborgs. Those were truly strange creatures, dangerously reminding her of the worst parts of the Reaper War. In fact, if the technology was vastly different from the ones used by the Reapers, she couldn't help but notice a few similarities. The obscene reuse of organic matter into synthetic murdering abominations

Was it a secret facility? Maybe another Cerberus lab gone wrong. No, probably not. Cerberus was dead, buried and dissolved, she made sure of that. There were always mad scientists though, but she had no way to be sure.

Whatever those creatures were supposed to be, they hadn't found her Prometheus yet. It was still sitting there, in the back of the dry garden, like an enormous and extravagant decoration. The thought of keeping it as a souvenir crossed her mind in a flash and made her smile. She had to stop collecting things.

Getting into the pod, she began to transfer all data to her omnitool, and then fried the whole system. It was a pity, but she couldn't risk those infos to fall into enemies hand. It took only 4 minutes to destroy every usable equipment. She regretted not having brought more weapons, but she did always travelled light. With only 20 shots in her rifle, though she had to be careful.

Now came the difficult part.

Using the thermogel, she drew a circle along the red lines beneath the deactivated console. A simple electric pulse made the translucent gel melt the metal and evaporate into toxic fumes, thankfully blocked by the filter of Sarah's armour. The disc of metal, now disconnected from the rest, was easy to remove. A soft blue glow emanated from underneath.

A sphere of black metal, the size of a small fist, had been placed there. It connected to the rest of the ship by multiple cables and surrounded by a shifting blue mass effect field, making it look ethereal. Sarah never tired of admiring it, whole civilisations had been based on tiny fragments such as the one inside the containment sphere. The Element Zero core, the most valuable part of the Prometheus.

With great care, she activated her left omnitool, her Quarian arm covering itself in the orange glow of the holoprojector, and slowly slid it through the hole. Micro lasers on the tip of her fingers delicately cut the different wires around the eezo core. She could feel hers "flesh" shift in mass around the field, it was very dangerous to approach an active one so closely. Then again, it was an emergency, and her omnitool was creating its own mass effect to compensate a little for the possible degradations.

Finally, the shifting aura faded as its power source was cut, and only the black sphere remained. Softly, Sarah took it in her hand and dislodged it. That was it, there was nothing more in the pod those cyborgs could scavenge, everything had been cleansed. She put the core on her belt, lacking any real pocket on her armour. It was stable in this form, the only risk was a breach of the containment unit. But she wouldn't had mind giving cancer to the monstrosities.

 _-Techie, you hear me?_

 _-Loud and clear,_ answered Sarah, slightly annoyed by the sound of the other's voice.

 _-Don't take the elevators. Those things have taken over at least 5 level around the 8th._

 _-Any difficulties?_

 _-Yeah, disruptor ammo have no effect on any of them, and they carry some sort of energy gun. Any progress on your end?_

 _-I've cleared the Prometheus and..._

The communication suddenly stopped. The link had been cut brutally, her omnitool indicating a hacking in progress.

Then a deep mechanical voice took over.

 _ **-We are the Borg.**_

 _ **Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.**_

 _ **Resistance is futile.**_

And then, nothing.

The commander had drawn her gun and pointed it at the entrance, acting on instinct. She was alone, and no sound of heavy boots in the corridor. They may have had located her through the communication, but they weren't in the vicinity. Yet.

She stormed out. No one. No sound.

The other... _Cutie Pie_ was probably in trouble, but on the other hand she had to secure an exit for them both. The decision was simple. Her unwilling partner was on her own for now, and she had no idea where she was. They both needed a way out other than getting spaced.

She ran through the white corridors, her pistol ready in her hand. Several times, she heard the march of a Borg patrol, looking for her without a doubt. But they were slow and clumsy, and with a map of the placeas her weapon , she escaped their notice without any difficulty. The thought of having them in her back was troubling her, but there was no way she could withstand an assault if they were all onto her.

The other one told her not to use the elevators, and for a good reason. As she approached one, two borgs were guarding it. Those mechanical beasts may not have been the most mobile enemy, but they knew how to occupy territory. With a whisper, she turned invisible.

The two borgs were completely immobile, unwaveringly looking straight forward. Then there was a terrible shriek, and one of them fell, cut in in half from the hip to the shoulder. The other barely had the time to turn the head that five detonations torn his face and head implants apart. His body fell to the ground like concrete, convulsing madly despite the critical injury. A female silhouette appeared as the photoreceptors on Sarah's armour deactivated. She put several bullets in the other's brain, to satisfy her paranoid survival instinct, and holstered her handgun.

Clutching her metallic fist, she gathered strength and momentum and slammed it violently in the elevator doors. They bended through the terrible shock, enough for Shepard to slid both her hand through. Already she could hear the inexorable march of the Borg, alerted of her presence. That only made her more determined, and without any apparent effort, she pushed the doors to the side.

But there was no cable inside. Just an empty tube. Looking up and down, she could see that it was far from being an usual elevator. There were multiple paths, some horizontal. Clearly it was more of a specialised highway than a simple up and down button. And the borg were closing in.

 _Think Shepard, think!_

She tapped on her omnitool and prepared for the leap of faith.

Just as a patrol came from the corner, she stepped in the empty tube. Spreading her legs as close as possible to opposite part of the tube, she activated her grav boots. Both of her feet were suddenly attracted to the nearest surface, but Sarah resisted the gravitational pull, and she fell down... far slower that she should have.

Her grav boots acting like brakes on a falling elevator, she speeded through the tunnel, controlling her velocity to prevent her losing control and actually falling in the seemingly endless pit. But one her feet passed in front of an horizontal tunnel. Brutally deprived of footing, Shepard tripped to the side, grabbing the edge of the smooth elevator highway purely on reflexes.

Far above, she could see a borg looking at her, taking aim. The first shot missed, but the powerful blast of green plasma burned through the walls just beside her. In one desperate move, she jumped upward, to the opposite side of the tunnel, her grav boot gluing her foot to it for a fraction of a second. And with a powerful leap that made her leg scream in pain, she rushed into the horizontal tunnel, escaping another blast behind her.

Her body crashed and rolled on the ground but immediately got up. She was out of sight, even if they knew in which part of the station she was. Bringing up the maps, she scurried away before the Borgs had the idea of bringing an elevator to crush her where she stood.

It took her several minutes to find her way undetected into the base of the station through the elevator highways. Switching between maintenance tunnels and vertical lift tubes, she managed to quickly travel the distance and finally arrived at the very base of the space station. There was only one door leading to the alcove she had noticed on the map, and she didn't like it.

But there wasn't any room for comfort, so she pried open the door anyway. It was far easier from the inside and the doors opened without any difficulty... to a large room full of monitors and completely devoid of borgs.

The base of the station was a circular cone pointing downward and surrounded by transparent glass, letting calm light of stars irradiate gently illumate the room. The elevator was at the centre, and all around were dozens of computers ergonomically placed so that multiple people could operate them without bumping on each other.

It wasn't a hangar nor an emergency exit pod station, and that was a bad news, but Sarah was curious nonetheless. There was no power here, yet the Borg didn't seemed to have reached that level yet. Maybe that meant that they were still in the process of acquiring the station. Maybe there were still people in here, alive and fighting. And with answers.

Looking around, Shepard found a very pleasant surprise. On the wall was a detailed map of the whole station. She took a picture and studied it.

To her delight, she located the actual hangar, a little above her level, accessible through the "Turbolift" tunnels. And even more, she learned that she was in the communication centre. The Borgs must have had the power cut as soon as they began their "addition" of station "to their own". They were bulky and slow, but smart enough to disrupt communications and send patrols at the best places. Thankfully, Sarah didn't need a fully operational comm centre. She only needed to link her omnitool to an emitter and boost her signal as far as she could.

Rummaging through the room, looking for something familiar, the revelation finally hit Sarah. She was far, far from home. The tech was indeed both familiar and extremely alien. She had travelled throughout the galaxy, meeting aliens and learning about their culture, familiarising herself with their weaponry and various technical skills. Yet this was new... and... old. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.

One thing for sure, they made no use of any VI, nor any holo console. However, they still used radio signals to communicate, and there was an antenna. And that was enough.

She opened panels on the ground and dug her hand in the guts of the machine. The power being out, the only danger was to destroy some component, but considering her situation, it was the least of her problem.

She finally found what she supposed was the link to the emitter and wired it to her arm.

She knew the Borg would descend on her as soon as she activated it, and try to scramble her communication. She had to act fast and clever.

 _-SOS, SOS, Borg on the station. This is commander Shep/_

And the comm was suddenly cut. The whole frequency had been filled with noise, making any attempt to communicate impossible. Interestingly enough, even if the Borgs had been extremely quick to react, they couldn't jammed all transmissions at once.

Time to get out.

But just as she as going for the turbolift when a deep vibration filled the empty tube. A lift was coming. Shepard realised that the Borg had been waiting for such an opportunity, having probably a squad in ambush, ready to run to her position. And she was trapped.

She jumped on the side as the lift appear, and three borgs got out and deployed the room. But they saw nothing. Sarah had hid herself in the comm room, crouching behind the consoles rather than activating her power hungry cloak. She could take them, without a doubt. But even then, there would be more. Already the lift had disappeared, probably making way for another batch of fresh killing machines.

But the commander had survived far worse. She took her rifle, three shots before she needed to change the thermoclip. Concentrating deeply and she activated her secret weapon. Through her will, a small biotic field enveloped the metal of her ammunition, ready to tear apart anything that came near it with a biologically induced mass effect field. Using her small biotic talents was draining. But so worth it. The three mechanical monsters checked the room with cold determination, inexorably approaching her position. Already Sarah could hear another Turbolift coming in.

She took aim and shot... at the glass.

The first two shots resonated, loud and deafening in the closed room. They stroke a force field, but nonetheless disrupted it. The borgs turned sharply, and aim at her position. Far too late.

The third shot completely shattered the heavy glass, the mass effect field surrounding the bullet twisting it, tearing it apart in an instant. It exploded spectacularly, and the void of space sucked both Shepard and the Borgs outside.

Having prepared herself, Sarah grabbed the edge of the window with her left hand and whirled violently, the momentum smashing her against the exterior of the station. She saw the three borgs silently pass her by, trying to grab at something, but unable to resist the sudden exfiltration. To her surprise, they were still perfectly functional, even in the void of space, but their course was now deep space. And soon, they were invisible to the human eye, lost in the darkness.

Her grav boots kicked in and she could get up. She was now on the station, the head toward the infinite and only her armour protecting her from suffocation. She refrained from taking a deep breath, saving oxygen for when the Borg would follow her out there. She didn't know if they could work as well in vacuum as inside the station, but wasn't willing to find out.

Activating her omnitool she summoned the maps, and located the hangar bay.

In a curt move, she ejected a 30 cm long cylinder from her weapon. The thermoclip was glowing orange form the heat it absorbed from the shots, but Shepard took it none the less and attached it to her side. In space, it would cool itself nicely.

And she knew she would need ever bit of firepower in the next minutes of space walk.

* * *

 _ **-We are the Borg.**_

 _ **Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.**_

 _ **Resistance is futile.**_

 _-Trash talk never gets old._

Behind Lauren, the elevator door had been blasted open from the inside, and the elevator itself was missing. Instead, the superior half of a borg was clinging to the edge, trying not to fall in the bottomless pit as his insides were barely holding in. The whole section had its white walls blackened by plasma fire, and covered of a translucent liquid, that turned out to be Borg blood. With her slenderly designed N7 Eagle handgun, she granted the agonising monster another hole in the head, shoving it off balance and sending him down with the rest of his death squad. And the elevator.

She took a deep breath. The fight had been short, but intense, she never expected those creature to find her so quickly, or to fight so well in close combat. To make matters worse, they seemed now all equipped with weapons and some form of force shield, akin to kinetic barrier, but easier to overcome. So far. There was no doubt, those creatures, those "Borgs" were adapting their equipment in real time to counter her own tactics.

However, they didn't withstood the full barrage of fury sprung by her automatic close combat personal devastator, the N7 Piranha. She had barely used any other weapons than her Valkyrie during the Reaper war, but she was glad to have add the bulky black shotgun to her arsenal in the Prometheus.

Judging from the ominous sound of heavy boots closing in, she was going to need every edge she had to survive.

First of all, she had to plan her route. She didn't had enough thermoclips to indulge herself in wanton destruction, and whatever source of energy those Borgs used, she couldn't scavenge it. Running in the opposite direction, her Valkyrie back in her hands, she quickly assessed her situation.

Being blocked at the 13th level was her biggest problem. As soon as she entered it, she had been automatically led here to be sliced to pieces by an ambush. Turned out differently than they thought, although her whole body was still shaken by the terror she endured at that moment. A terror that kept her alive, once again.

Opening the map gracefully conceded by her royal majesty Techie, she quickly selected her best routes. There were multiple access ladders to the upper level. She took the second closest and run to it.

Getting up the first one was easy. She couldn't help but feel a different atmosphere around. There was a deep buzzing coming from up high, probably the power source. But also in the aesthetic. Running through the 12th level, she saw that it hadn't only been stripped, but also modified. The whole structure was being redesigned from the inside. Looking more... rectangular, sharper.

Three borgs appeared in the corner at the end of the corridor. Her body reacting on its own, Shepard stopped, secured her footing, aimed, and fired three burst of two bullets. Her armour guiding her hands and compensating for the recoil, she hit the bullseye three time in a row. Each time the first bullet disabled the shield temporarily, and the second buried itself in the head of the borg. Quick and efficient. The three already dead bodies fell to the ground, inanimate.

 _-Scoped an' dropped,_ she muttered under her breath with a grin.

So far, those cyborgs were a challenge up close, but mere target practice at range. She continued her on her path to the other ladders. Frequently, she'd hear a patrol nearby, and she'd try to avoid it. Despite her confidence, she knew that any prolonged fight would only get tougher and tougher as she went on.

And as much as she'd love a challenge, she wasn't here for pleasure. She had a job to do.

Getting up at the 11th floor was easier than she thought. The change in atmosphere was also a change in overhaul design. Many ladders had been sealed, but many more new ones had been carved from the ceiling. She could hear borgs working the metal in the distance. They were building something, inside the station. And Shepard was heading right to it.

As she climbed one of the untouched ladder and entered a room completely in the dark, save for a soft pulsating green glow. Shepard shifted her helmet to night vision and was stunned by the view.

There wasn't any white walls anymore, nor any ceiling for that matter. All the walls, all the rooms, all the corridors had been cut down and collected on at least 7 levels, all to create on gigantic structure whose size made Lauren feel crushed. It was a cube, a gigantic one, made of black metal torn from the station and remodelled into grids, upon grids, so far and so high that she couldn't see through it. From the inside of this beast several eery lights were pulsating, colouring the colossal building with its dark green aura.

The Cube had pillar-like arms, buried into the walls that separated it from outer space, maintaining its massive weight in check. The whole thing seemed to come out of one of Javik's tales of the Metacon wars of his time. When the Galaxy was in danger of being destroyed by hybrids of organics and synthetics. Her resolve steeled instantly. Somewhere inside that thing was the source of the energy spikes. And she was going to make it rip the whole station apart if necessary.

Looking for an entrance was easy, there were multiple breach in the structure, leading to long corridors and elevating platform allowing to navigate through the multiple levels. But before she could enter, a patrol of three borgs appeared from the corner of the Cube. She took aim in an instant, but didn't pull the trigger. She could see it from there, those borg were fully armoured with dark plating all over their body. The VI integrated in her weapon and armoured calculated in milisecond the thickness of it, and it was too much for simply a couple of bullets. The bastards were adapting a little too fast.

Appearing from the darkness of the Cube, a powerful hand gripped her shoulder so hard it could have broken it if it wasn't plated. Instinctively, Lauren grabbed the hand and ducked, evading what seemed to be two sharp dart aimed at her head. She spun and twisted the assailant arm and exchange places with him. Just as she made him stood where she was an instant ago, three blue mass effect fields reaped the borg were he stood, propelling him at lightening velocity a hundred meters away, in several pieces.

The Commander plunged head first deeper in the structure to find cover. Her mind was overcome by the sudden realisation. The borgs didn't just upgraded their armour, they had build grav-guns with mass effect fields! No time to think, she had to either fight or flight, and she chose to escape first. She couldn't take the risk of dealing with new enemies on open ground, and she just hoped that she wasn't heading into a trap.

The inside of the Borg Cube was extremely well ordered and ergonomic. There was nothing left to chance in the rough design, with long corridors along series of strange monitors, the grids crossing each other in a perfect angle. It was admirably done, and exceptionally good to get attacked by surprise.

With no one to watch her back, Shepard knew she had to be efficient and extremely careful. First, she had to lose her opponents. Right at the moment she was conjuring that thought, two deformed arms ambushed her from the corner. The two fell to the ground in a flash, as her red omniblade severed them both like a hot knife on butter. The Borg stayed idle for a moment, then turned its back and walked away without any form of pain or panic.

She had no time for this, already her instincts were telling her the heavy patrol was nearly to her entrance, and she had only run a hundred meters. She didn't knew the range of their gun, but she knew the range of hers.

Lauren detached a heavy black rectangular from her back and activated it by pressing a switch. The gun deployed, becoming a meter and half canon more akin to artillery than to rifles. Lauren, knelt, took aim and lightly open her mouth to prevent her teeth from touching. The first Borg appeared at the entrance, and she took the shot. Her whole body shook as she absorbed the terrible recoil of the Black Widow, her feet brutally bending the metal grids behind her. The Borg wasn't even hindered in his motion, but soon its walk became slower, and finally stopped. It didn't seemed to have realised its head had been obliterated, and its neck implants were red hot of the sudden impact. Behind it, a terrible deep sound indicated the shot had reached the wall. Thankfully, it hadn't pierced it.

A familiar detonation resonated in the air, and the lifeless body of the borg was hurled forward by another mass effect field. Shepard was fast, but not that fast. She could only bring her massive gun in front of her as the decapitated body smashed on her with such a violence she was thrown to the ground a few meter away. The bastard was heavy.

She grunted and rolled cadaver to the side, out of breath. Her body was screaming in pain, another human would have been at least knocked out. But for Lauren, pain was good news. It meant those in front had missed, and that she was still alive. She ducked into a perpendicular corridor. There was no way she could fire the dreaded Black widow in close quarter, but she was glad to have used it that effectively. Even ships designed to resist entering atmosphere were getting holes from that baby.

But for now she had to destroy those pursuers. The Borg were relentless, once spotted they never gave up the chase. But they were otherwise very avoidable. The main problem was their new armour, but her Piranha should make short work of it. Unless they shot first.

She holstered her Widow, reducing it to its compact size, and put a mine on her position. Jumping across the main corridor, she saw the Borg took aim, but not shoot. It meant two things. One they were reluctant to shoot such destructive weapons inside their own Cube. Second, the third armoured Borg was unaccounted for, probably trying to flank her. This was a game of chess, the one to win would be the one to trap the other.

It was time to take a little height. Rushing to the next elevator, which revealed itself to be merely a moving metal plate, she realised it wouldn't move for a non-borg. Nevertheless, hearing the boots of the one who threw the other borg at her, she climbed the grid and jumped to grab the edge of the next level. As she was just standing there, vulnerable, the sharp detonation of her mine brought her a smile. She pulled herself up, noticing her adversary, face first on the ground, but barely scathed by the explosion. She now had a little heads up, and she rushed forward, keep them from cornering her.

But they were smarter that she gave them credit for.

The second armoured one appeared before her, dominating her with his massive black body. He lifted his left arm, a blue glow building around it. Her blood boiled as fear took control and she grabbed the arm and pointed it up. At the same time, two sharp sticks grew from the fingers of his other hand and were aimed at her throat. She intercepted it too, just as they were going to make contact with her.

That monster was powerful, even more so than a Krogan, his metallic members pressing on her so hard she could feel her muscles burning in the effort. Then she heard the tingle. To her horror, the two sharp sticks were in fact flexible, and were now prodding the armour of her finger in search for a weakness, like two parasitical worms with life of their own.

She shifted her weight and headbutted the Borg.

The sudden and unexpected attack threw him off balance, enough for Shepard to activate her omniblade, release her grip on the grav canon and cut the right arm of the creature, killing instantly the metal worms before they could find their way to her skin. The cyborg wasn't stunned however, and he dangerously pointed his remaining arm to her. Like in slow motion, Lauren witnessed herself jump forward, blade still hot. She saw her weapon bury itself under the shoulder and progress to the heart.

And she saw, powerless, the grav-gun shoot, point blank.

The rest was confusion.

She woke up brutally, her body still burning of adrenaline, masking all other sensations. Her vision was blurred, her breath was short, her ears ringing. She tried to move, and felt restraint. She panicked, liberating her arm from the unknown grip and repeatedly smashing her elbow at whatever was behind her. The vibration dislodged her as her vision came back. Before her was a hole. Several holes. She had been blasted diagonally through five level before being embedded on what appeared to be the side of a pod.

How long had she been out? She had her answer quickly, as far below, she saw the armoured borg walk to its colleague, whose insides were dropping from his lifeless body. The only remaining armoured hunter looked up at her, and aimed. She fell more than jumped to the side, and the pod where she was seconds ago was crushed by the sudden pressure of the mass effect field. She crawled away, an awful sensation in her guts. She knew the feeling, she had been rammed through walls before.

Her helmet fell to the ground and she regurgitated everything her stomach contained. Her mouth burned as her own acid were attacking her tongue, coming up in uncontrolled spasms. Her vomit filtered through the grids and splashed downward in a disgusting and slimy way. Lauren's body was also waking up, and she felt tore apart, as if her insides had been turn to mush. Her back was bleeding, despite being treated automatically by her armour, making the fabric of her cloth stick to the wounds. It would be a pain to tear it away from the coagulated blood.

But Lauren Shepard had survived once again.

A metallic boot made the grid trembled.

 _-Of fucking course..._

She tried to reach for her handgun but lost balance and fell on the side. A borg was approaching right in front of her... and passed her by, ignoring her even paying attention to the human, helpless at its feet, the Borg knelt and began to use its tools to repair the floor.

Lauren was stunned. What... was happening? She slowly approached her hands to her gun and the Borg froze. He was seeing her! Just as carefully, she put her hand away, and the Borg resumed operation. That borg was like an ant-worker. And the ant-hunter was still chasing her. She got up as best she could, her legs resisting commands. The green light were much more intense there, it was a whole different level.

A level whose inhabitants may not perceive her as a threat, unless she disturbed their work.

She still had at least one borg unit aimed at her, but he was five level below. Time to get back to work, and blow the hell of those things.


	4. Chapter 4: Blackstorm collapse

She felt the recoil of the shot in the absolute silence of space. Far away, a borg lost his eye implants along with half of its head, and stopped functioning. The third in a row. A glowing thermoclip was ejected from the Valiant and caught by Sarah's dexterous hand. As soon as she had began her walk on the surface of the station, Borg had come after her. That was the 7th one she had killed, and they never even got a chance to aim at her.

The 8th coldly looked at the body parts floating around, most of her pursuer had attempted to flank her by sneaking out by different access shaft all around. None of them had even successfully got a firm footing before dying. Wisely, he decided not to take his chance. While the Borg seemed exempt of any survival instinct, they knew logic. And fighting her out there was a waste of resources.

All the while she shot, she was marching toward her destination, the hangar. Keeping an eye on everything wasn't the easiest thing in the world, especially considering how slow she could move in space. She could only walk, never taking both feet out of the ground for a second, and the grav boots only worked locally. Any movement felt weightless and required constant muscle control.

Shooting in space was very difficult. If your footing wasn't right, you could throw yourself out of the mass effect field and join the countless frozen corpses in deep space. Shooting while walking was expressly forbidden by any decent military book about fire-fights in 0g. And it was the first thing you needed to do during the N2 special force training.

Still worried about further attacks, Sarah couldn't just wait around doing nothing but walking. There was much to do, and maybe something about communication. While she had no way to know if her distress call had been heard, she had noticed that the Borg hadn't been able to block it immediately. The reason was probably because she used a different technology than the machines, and their adaptation to it was maybe incomplete.

She set her comm to the typical N7 frequency by Alliance military, and tried.

 _-Randomize frequency, stay op/_

And she was cut. Damn, they were fast. But they weren't good enough. A few second, a burst transmission came in on a seemingly random frequency, as instructed.

 _-Techie? What the/_

She smiled while randomizing her own frequencies, those short burst conversations was reminding her of the good old time...

 _-Yes. Status?_

 _-Inside Borg HQ._

 _-Energy source?_

 _-Not yet, you?_

 _-Approaching object/_

 _-Careful, Brog with Gr/_

 _-Repeat._

 _-Borg eezo gun._

Sarah paused. The Borg were using eezo? She thought fast. Considering that nothing in the station seemed to be eezo based or even remotely made to be used with it, it could have been that they took it from Cutie Pie's pod. But it took years for humanity to even understand what eezo was and how it worked.

Those creatures had done it in less than an hour.

They had to destroy the station, along with every inch of eezo they couldn't recover, but she couldn't do anything from here. Her job was to find the hangar, prep an escape route, and leave the rest to her unwilling partner.

* * *

 _-Acknowledged,_ simply said Techie, on the other side of the comm.

Lauren pondered for a moment, crouched in the dark, watching the pods aligned along the corridor. Who was that woman really? Could she really be... her? Somehow, she knew everything Lauren knew, N7 communication, weapons, tactics, technology, everything about her pointed to another N7 human spectre. But she was so different from her. She was so... uptight, she could see it just by her face, her movements, all of it was oozing a by the book attitude. She reminded her of Kaidan.

And so, she knew she couldn't have mentioned the pods to her. She wouldn't have understood. Maybe she would have, but it would have put some strain on her moral principles, and unnecessarily so as there was only one way to handle it. Those people, those naked humans in the pod, were already dead anyway.

Walking through the Borg Cube, completely ignored by the ant-worker as long as she didn't tried to attack them, she had seen many things she didn't understood. But when she followed the yellow glow, hoping to find some clue to where the actual energy source was located, she learnt how Borgs were created. With humans. Unwilling ones.

There were men, women, children and elderly. Probably everything breathing in the station. Some of them were relatively intact, but others had been shot and deeply burned. All were now missing limbs, or had holes in their back, their torso, their arms, their head. She had witnessed the countless nano machines do their work as they buried themselves in the right eye of an old woman, dissolve it and prepared for the implant to be riveted to her eye socket and skull.

The children, they were injected through crude tubes with greyish matter and connected with cables. Some were mere toddlers. None would know the feeling of being human. In another time, she may have had some second thoughts about killing them all. She may have had the need to at least try to save them, to give them back their lives. Not anymore. She had a mission, no way to get them out, no way to be sure they wouldn't try to kill her once freed and no time to lose.

But the other. Yes, Lauren knew she wouldn't have stood for this.

Without another thought, she moved on.

The corridors were larger on this section, and her map wasn't of any help. The structure was seen as some big blur, mostly because the further they were from the pod, the less clear the data was. But the energy spikes had been detected around, that was for sure.

More than a few time she had to change course to make sure the armoured Borg wasn't on her trail. The Borg seemed to act like a rigid hierarchy, where someone's place wasn't anyone's. Only Borgs set on killing her were allowed to hurt her, unless she made the first move.

Or at least she hoped, because deep as she was into the gigantic cube, there would be no way out should they all turn on her.

* * *

The hangar doors were wide open. Like an enormous maw, gaping at the stars, its own entrails covered in darkness. HMWP in hand, Sarah was extremely careful. The Borg hadn't attempted to follow her further, but that enemy was fearsome, cunning, adaptable, and most of all, relentless. She couldn't believe for a second they just abandoned the pursuit, and was prepared for a trap.

Either they guessed her destination and were lying in ambush, or they were waiting for her to appear on their radar again. And there was the possibility that the whole hangar had been assimilated, leaving no shuttle to escape.

Too much question, not enough action. She took a deep breath and and went in.

A ghost drifted through the empty hangar. It was devoid of air, of gravity and of power. There was... nothing. Nothing except 3 ships, vaguely resembling the rectangular Kodiak shuttles, gently piled against each other, weightless, in a corner of the large shuttle bay. And no Borg around.

The cloak dissipated, revealing a slowly floating Shepard, progressing in the darkness. She had used the low light vision instead of her flash-light. It was less comfortable, but she didn't want to alert anybody. Not that there were anybody to warn.

The first thing she did was approaching the entrance doors. There were several, and intriguingly, they were all sealed. Not by automatic response, but from the inside. She could see the work of a welder, and several impact shot on the walls. There had been a battle here. People fought, and barricaded themselves behind the heavy doors of the bay, covering their escape. But why would the Borg had cut the power then?

A chill took hold of her as she realised what had happened. There had been a bunch of survivors here, and they put up too much of a fight. And the Borg spaced them before they could escape.

The terrible fate summoned unpleasant memories she shook off, she had to focus. If she was careful, she could try to activate one shuttle without the Borg knowing. They weren't waiting in ambush after all, but there was no doubt they were searching for her. With a simple push, she launched herself to the nearest shuttle.

Those were small space crafts, maybe big enough for 4 people, in a rectangular form. The front was slender, more curvy and covered in what seemed like a black plastic. The doors were on the side, and all locked. The inside was still pressurized. Maybe there were survivors, hiding in those pods! She tapped on the windows, banged on it, but no answer. There was a chance they were unconscious. Maybe she could/

 _-Problem energy source._

The sudden burst distraught her. Cutie pie had interrupted her thoughts.

 _-Specify._

 _-Hunted, haven't found it._

There was a short pause

 _-Found Eezo._

 _-Extract?_

 _-No time. Destroy._

Dozens of thoughts submerged Sarah. She had thought of a way to destroy the Eezo for sure, but it was near suicidal. And offered no countdown. Time was up.

 _-Need more time_

 _-No time._

 _-Found shuttle, more time._

 _-No time!_

 _-Maybe survivors!_

 _-Now or both dead!_

Sarah bit her lips. The other one was right. The Borg were too monstrous, too powerful, they had no room for error or hesitation. She took a look at the cockpit of the shuttle, her thought drifting to the possible survivors in te lower levels. People she had never met. And never would. She made the call.

 _-Overload, Blakstorm collapse._

 _-... how big?_ Cutie pie asked after a moment.

 _-Everything,_ simply replied the Spectre.

And that was it.

With her omnitool, she forced the door to open. A gush of air stormed out, opening the door wide. When the bodies flew out, she coldly acknowledged them, and moved in.

* * *

Blackstorm collapse. Techie was annoying but she sure knew how to do her job.

The Borg had made a large circular room within their otherwise very Cubic architecture to house the Eezo, and the experimental tools that went with it. At the centre of the lab, held in suspension, was the Eezo. A little black rock out of its shell, levitating between two short, massive pillar. Five borgs were working on different monitors, sending several electric impulses, collecting data on the result, sending fragments of the element elsewhere in the Cube.

Lauren knew that they had to be stopped, by any means necessary and whatever the cost. She was too deep in the Cube anyway. A strange feeling of comfort took hold of her, things were at last... simple.

With her Eagle Pistol, she stormed in. Within only a few seconds, she had gunned down four borgs and sliced the last before he could reach her. Now every single Borg knew where she was. Including the armoured one. But that would soon be irrelevant.

So... an overload. Despite her tremendous training, Shepard had never quite took the time to learn the subtler sides of technology. She knew how to disarm a bomb, reroute a generator or operated an omnitool at peak efficiency, but xenotechnology was a little above her skills. She did however developed a tremendous talent for destruction.

Wasting no time, she went straight for the console where one of the borg was now sprawled on, several shots in the brain. Pushing it aside, Lauren did the exact same movement she saw it do a moment ago, when they raised the voltage of the machine. A loud buzzing made itself heard and... it shut down. An icon appeared on the console, resetting the voltage to minimum. There was a safety device in here!

A plasma shot splashed on her shield, disabling it in one go but stopping the projection dead in it track. Spinning, Valkyrie in hand, she headshoted the interrupting borg, and the two others that were taking heir aim. There was no time!

With her omniblade, she cut the cables alimenting the pillars, producing an impressive series of sparking explosions. She was going to bypass the security device the old fashion way, by applying the electric power directly to the source. Handling her rifle with one hand, she killed another Borg trying to sneak on her and violently pulled cable, dislodging it from its shackles on the wall.

Then, the armoured one appeared. Its grav gun on one hand, a plasma weapon on the other. Instinctively, Lauren shot him across the room, only denting his black protection, as he took aim.

 _-You gotta be shitting me!_

* * *

Those damn shuttles!

Sarah had never seen anything like it. She had found a manual inside it that could guide her through the several checks before launching the pod or repressurizing it, but she couldn't just browse it fast enough. And figuring out how those things were supposed to work was out of the question, she just wasn't good enough for that.

And yet, she had to hurry. Any moments, the gravitational pull of the overcharged Eezo could trap her in the hangar and crushed the shuttles, and her with it. But the worse part was the explosion.

As soon as the Eezo would reached its limit, it would collapse and disintegrate, crushed under its own weight. Without the mass effect field to hold together whatever air or solid material it had been attracted during it overcharged time would then return to normal mass. Like a spring, suddenly without pressure, it would simply explode. And while that quantity of Eezo was unable to create a self sustaining black hole, it was big enough to tear the whole station apart.

She had no time.

A movement caught her attention, and she ducked. A Borg was peeking in her direction.

They had found her.

* * *

She rolled forward, evading the plasma fire and getting in range for close combat. She slashed her omniblade to cut it in half, but it parried her with surprising agility. She sheer force of the blow made him fall to the side however, just in time for another Borg to shoot at her in her back. Kneeling, she retaliated by a series of precise shots on the soft part of its body.

The grav gun crackled and she jumped away. Not fast enough. Her feet were caught in the mass effect field, sending her whirling across the room and crashing on the pillar, her gun leaving her hands. Out of breath, she saw the armoured borg walk at her, two darts out of his right hand, ready to stab her before she regained full mobility. Her hand grabbed the first thing she could, stabbed the Borg with it as it tried to kill her. It was a fragment of grid, tore apart by the battle, red hot from plasma fire. And with it, she sectioned the Achilles heel of the armoured.

As strong as it was, as augmented as it could have been, the loss of control of its foot unbalanced it long enough for Shepard to grab the power cable and slam it to the Eezo core.

The effect was immediate and spectacular.

A powerful mass effect field enveloped the pillars and began to expand. Overcharged with energy, the Eezo was augmenting the mass of everything around it exponentially. And soon, the gravitational pull was felt. Both Shepard and the armoured one were pulled toward the increasingly intense blue aura. Already her Valkyrie had slammed into the element zero like a magnet, and Shepard was putting all her strength in her arms, gripping at the grid, not to do the same.

But it was inevitable, the pull was just too strong. Her fingers screamed in pain, as if they were torn apart, and the grid grave away. Like falling down, she was propelled toward the centre of the circular room, and landed on her favourite enemy, the armoured one. He too was blocked, and it was a strange embrace they had, face to face, trying to overpower the pull that was now destroying the whole room.

Lauren looked down, and had a wicked smile. She extended her arm and pulled her Valkyrie back. She was weighting a ton, like pulling a Krogan out of a Thresher Maw's mouth, but she wasn't going anywhere without it. She then forced the partially tore apart grav-gun toward her stomach, battling against her own weight. She felt crushed, on the brink of being smashed and reduced to mush. The blue aura was already eating the Armoured borg, his back having been ripped off to envelop the Eezo, who was barely getting started. The borg's eyes were still vivid though, and when she finally had the grav gun in place, she placed her omnitool on it and screamed from the top of her lungs.

 _ **-Sayonara bitch!**_

And she electrocuted the damaged canon, activating the Eezo inside. She felt like exploding, as the pressure of the mass effect field suddenly vanished as she was propelled within another field toward the exit. She rammed a borg in the corridor, barely slowing her down as she flew through the tight space. Finally, she bounced on he walls and crashed on the ground, rolling over several time. Her whole body was hurting. Good, she was alive, and out of range.

For now.

As if fleeing a horde of Reapers, she ran away as far as she could, the whole Cube beginning to crumble behind her.

* * *

Third in a row and wasting time.

The borg had been shooting their plasma at her, but her biotic bullets were more than a match for them. Behind the cover of the shuttle, she was trying to buy herself some time. But to no avail. Already she could hear the metal cringing above them. Lauren had successfully initiated the Blackstorm. All the station was going down.

Another shot, piercing straight through the shield into the skull, and a fourth borg lost footing into space, firing wildly around.

She was _**not**_ going to die here!

Quickly returning into the shuttle, she opened the manual to the emergency section. From the glass, she could see two Borg appearing and taking aim.

She entered the command to force the start despite the security check. Too slow. The shuttle powered up and the borg fired hell upon her.

An invisible shield absorbed the green fire just a few centimetres away from the glass. The Commander was stunned for an moment, then engaged the engines full speed. The spacecraft propelled itself forward, smashing the two borgs out of the way. Sarah moved to the open door and looked at the shrinking station. She was alive.

The last survivor. Again.

* * *

Shepard fell at least 10 meters, jumping out of the Cube by an opening. Rolling on the naked ground, she continued. Behind her, the Cube was bending onto itself, making the metal cringe in a horrible concert. The air itself was being absorbed, creating winds in front of her, slowing her progression. She could feel her own body being pulled too.

There was only one way out, and it all hinged on if Techie did her job.

Activating her grav-boots to glue herself to the ground, she drew her massive Black Widow. She could still see the impact of her shot on the outer wall, the whole metallic body having bend in a circle around the hole. Now she was just five meters away, and there was no force field protecting it. She activated her incendiary ammo, and shot.

The bullet crashed full force on the wall, and spread it infernal heat all around. The whole panel began to irradiate, and the hole itself was surrounded by a red hot circle. The second shot had an even worse impact. Drops of liquid metal splashed around, some being stopped in their track and sucked to the inside of the hole. She had pierced far enough to space!

But it was just a little hole, and she could feel the pull getting stronger. Soon, her own boots wouldn't be able to keep her still. It wasn't enough!

Activating her omnitool, she set her cryo ammo, and programmed the next shot to be concussive. The loud detonation was muffled by the sudden collapse of the whole Cube behind her, as the ceiling had been torn apart and plunged straight into the growingly massive Mass Effect Field. The shot of deep frost spread instead of concentrating on one point and created an explosion of sudden cold on the burning metal.

The shock was too much, and the hole expanded as the metal shattered to pieces, being sucked in space. Lauren saw before her the bullet hole become a gaping rift, and the wind brutally changed direction. She deactivated her grav boot and let herself be thrown into the dark space.

* * *

From the safety of distance, Sarah witnessed the station bending inward. Not long after that, the explosion happened.

Without a sound, without an once of fire or violence, the station bloomed like a flower. It separated in five chunks that bend away from each other, spreading debris around like pollen. The top and the bottom were thrown in opposite direction and began their endless course toward... nowhere. She could see what was the hangar being torn in two and hurled in different directions.

If there ever was any survivors, they were dead now, not knowing what had brought their fate to them. Even Cutie Pie. She hated her deep down, she wanted to blame her for the maybe death of maybe survivors. But that wasn't honest. The mission was accomplished, she did her job, and there was no saving anyone now.

But you never leave someone behind if there is even a chance she's still alive.

She opened the channel.

 _-Cutie pie? Cutie pie do your read me? If you're dead clap twice._

 _-Cut the crap, you're worse than Joker. I'm in space, between debris._

 _-You injured?,_ Sarah asked, masking her surprise.

 _-The suits fine. Activating distress beacon now._

A red dot appeared on her omnitool, indicating the position of a spaced operative. She had been launched along dozens of debris, but they weren't going nearly fast enough to lose the shuttle.

Handling it carefully, she manoeuvred herself in the trail of torn metal. Going at the same speed at the, they looked static pieces, gently spinning on themselves. She glided through them and finally located the other Spectre, clinging to a large panel. Sarah entered the instructions in the computer, and it began to mimic the spin of the chunk of metal.

Cutie pie jumped, without waiting for the doors to open. Of course Sarah had anticipated that and opened it just in time to let her enter the shuttle and she stabilized herself inside the small space available.

Sarah closed the door and pressurized the space craft, sealing it, pouring in oxygen, making gravity and activating the recycling procedures.

Both looked at the other a long moment in silence.

Despite being in a cockpit with limited supplies, they were at last they were alone and safe.

Safe to ask themselves the questions the emergency had taken their mind away from.

 _-Ok..._ sighted Lauren, _Let's make things clear..._

* * *

 _ **Notes:** As we conclude the introduction, i would like to thank you for being so many to read this little project of mine. All your inputs are appreciated greatly, and to produce a story truly worthy of you, I'm going to do extensive research on the Star Trek timeline. It's been a while, and there is no way this story is going be plagued by mistakes and errors that can be avoided. The down side is that's going to take some time, so do not expect any chapter before next Monday._

 _Should there be no chapter ready by that time, you will have a little teaser for your patience nonetheless._

 _See you beyond the final frontier._


	5. Interlude: Daedalus's warning

_**Author Notes: ** Those events are happening in the year 2372, after the TNG's last season and first movie "Generation". All relevant background will, of course, be mentioned so you don't have to actually see everything. Everything that have happened up until that point is as described in the canon universe, however the mysterious apparition of the Shepards, will have unforeseen consequences on future events..._

* * *

 _-No, no no! It's too soon!_

Frantically typing on a tablet, a middle aged man was progressively panicking. Before his eyes were streaming numerous files at high speed, though he didn't seemed to enjoy the read. He violently threw the tablet on the ground an held his head in his hands, wailing of frustration.

 _-I suppose you know by now,_ declared a calm feminine voice at the door of the small control room.

 _-Dammit!_ Exploded Bran. _What happened!_

 _-It seems a distress signal was send, despite our precautions._

Jumping from his seat, Bran faced the young woman at his door and nearly shoved her aside as he burst to the corridor. His voice was trembling, he needed to take control of the situation.

 _-What are the risk of spilling, Gotoo?_ He asked to the woman he knew was following.

 _-At this stage, very few. Although the Borg will be back, it's certain._

 _-And what of the signals. Did you scrambled them?_

 _-Not the initial one, but that was only a lone radio signal. A shuttle is currently emitting a distress signal but it won't pass through._

 _-Any ships that could have detected the initial call?_

The loud silence of Gotoo was telling him a million things.

Both entered a larger room, bathed in the blue light of the strange enormous bags of liquid on the wall. The Bio neural Gel packs were functioning at full capacity, monitoring every activities in the quadrant.

 _-Bran,_ softly said Gotoo as he was seating, _you should rest. You know you are not yourself when you're tense._

 _-I..!_ Began Bran, furious, before taking hold of himself. _You're right. I'm sorry Gotoo. But this mission is extremely tricky, you can't toy with the Borg._

Slowly, he brushed his middle finger with his thumb, soothing his panic, putting his thoughts in order. The situation had to be controlled.

 _-Where is the Enterprise at the moment?_

 _-Still at Deep Space 5, readying for a series of missions in the sector._

 _-We must assume they got the signal. Gotoo, ask Him to cover our tracks. I'm going to contact HQ._

 _-Don't you think we should abandon this operation?_

 _-Too many lives are stake. We should adapt. Adapt, and vainquish._


	6. Ep 1 Chapter 5: Alert at Deep Space 5

**Episode 1**

 **The Lost and the Damned**

"Captain's log, star date 49499-3. The Enterprise-E have now been outfitted with most of its features and personnel. After six months of tests and improvements, we are now nearing the end of our shakedown run. I have received several survey missions in the vicinity of Deep space 5 in order to test our equipment in real situation, along with several surprise scenarios to enact, to test our crew. While not at full staff, I am confident in the experience of those who served under on the Enterprise-D, and the adaptability of our new additions. While exploration is the true vocation of Starfleet, and the Enterprise, I must admit to look forward being free of those important yet light missions. The whole quadrant is now in a spiral that seems to drag us all down in its destructive path. Violence and war stares at us from beyond our frontiers, and we must be able to stare back. The Enterprise and its crew are well equipped to ensure the protection of the Federation, and if need be to strike back at whatever foe decides to force our hand. But as long as our test runs aren't complete, we can only give our best contribution, no matter our small."

Captain Picard leaned back on his chair, pondering about this last entry. During those last six months, a lot had happened. Despite being still testing its new designs, the Enterprise had been involved and assigned to numerous missions of vital importance, a necessity in those times of tension. But all that had postponed the time where they could finally operate at peak efficiency, and join the rest of the fleet not merely has a transport vessel, but a Sovereign class ship. Then, they would make a difference.

The familiarity of his ready room couldn't shake the feeling of melancholy that had been growing in him. The bridge was just a door away from his personal office, and through it, the entire quadrant. He had lived countless adventures during the past decade on board of the Enterprise-D, yet the universe was constantly surprising him, putting him on confusing situations, far out of his comfort zone. And as they were going to leave the space station, a knew that the true reason behind his disappointment wasn't that he wasn't able to help the Federation. But that he had been stuck in familiarity for too long.  
Touching his Starfleet badge on his heart, he contacted the engine room.

 _-Mister Laforge, are we ready to leave Deep Space 5?_

 _-Yes captain,_ made the voice on the other side. _We triple checked the compatibility and the additional crew is already working at pace._

 _-Excellent, prepare for imminent departure._

Getting out of his chair, he headed straight out of his office directly to the bridge. Every officers were checking on their console, except for the commander Riker, standing in front of the map displayed on the front window. Tall, broad shouldered and his eyes always sparkling of energy, no one would have felt him misplaced on board a Galleon, roaming the seas of Earth, winds in his eyes and salt in his goatee. At his arrival, the imposing man presented a discreet smile of satisfaction.

 _-Captain. We just received authorisation for take off._

 _-Very good number one._

They both took their seat, right in the middle of all the operators. Picard took a moment to appreciate the sensation. At his right his number one, Riker, and at his left commander Deanna Troi, the ship's counsellor. Never before had they been so close as to be an actual ship with full crew and full capacity, the missions to come were only going to be the a confirmation.

And in front of him, the stars, and their new destination. With a passion that the years had not tempered, he addressed his operating officer.

 _-Commander Data, eng-_

 _-Emergency call from Deep Space 5,_ interrupted Data with a puzzled voice. _On screen now._

A face appeared on the front window, she was the commanding officer of Deep Space 5, a middle aged woman whose eyes were seemingly constantly exhausted, yet with a tone imbued with authority. The woman who Picard had a nice tea with just an hour before was now visibly troubled, an observation that made the captain uncomfortable.

 _-Is there a problem Portmaster Luxana?_

 _-There is, Picard,_ she answered.

Luxana was not one to forget proper rank without reasons. She turned around to grab some tablet and addressed Picard with a firm yet slightly alarmed voice.

 _-We received a transmission. It was just a burst, and we thought it was hard to distinguish from the background at first, but my science team just cleaned it. I'm patching it through._

As the portmaster typed on her tablet, the deep voice a woman made itself heard.

" _SOS. SOS. Borg on the station. This is commander Shep/"_

Picard's heart skipped a beat. The Borg. With difficulties, he maintained his calm demeanour as Luxana continued.

 _-We are currently trying to identify the origin of the transmission. It wasn't sub-space communication, and we estimate it had been at least 32 hours since it was emitted._

 _-I wasn't aware there were any other space stations in the vicinity,_ inquired Riker.

 _-There isn't, not that close._ She was interrupted by her vulcan assistant. _Scanning the possible area we just pinpoint a location heavy with jamming signals. Captain, I have no ship to spare if they are this close, but we need to assess the situation._

Picard was thinking about the eyes of his crew on him. Particularly Troi, with whom he had sometimes converses about his... unpleasant experience. He controlled his trembling, a captain wasn't a man to appear weak to his subordinates. The Borg, scourge of the galaxy, had left thei mark on the Federation, long ago. If they were back...

 _-The Enterprise is fully operational. Send us the coordinates._

 _-I'm sending you back up as soon as I can. And Captain. Good luck._

 _-Lieutenant Daniels!_ He declared while getting up, dominating the whole bridge, _rise to yellow alert and prepare for possible borg incursion. Set protocol Variant on all weapons and do not fire unless extreme emergency. Counsellor Troi, make sure everyone is at his station, we need the medical bay and engineering to be ready and protected._

 _-Right away captain._

As the alarm began to propagated throughout the ship, Picard opened communication to all floors.

 _-Crew of the Enterprise, this is the captain speaking. We have been warned of a potential Borg presence at short range and are preparing to investigate. All non essential personnel, be ready to evacuate on a moment's notice and do not, I repeat do not engage the borg._

He cut the comm and turned to the android.

 _-Data, how long?_

 _-14.7 minutes minutes at warp 9 sir._

 _-Make it so._

With absolute dexterity, Data entered the command on his console. A warp bubble enveloped the enormous ship, and with a powerful thrust, it launched in space faster than the speed of light, disappearing from the human eye in an instant. Left behind, Deep Space 5 was on full alert, ships un-docking in swarms and sending warnings to all colonies.

On the bridge, Picard turned to Riker. Both he and his second in command was presenting a determined look, but they both had been through too many struggles to not see through the appearance. Picard focused and typed his comm.

 _-Mister Laforge, I need you on the bridge. T_ urning he comms off, _Commander Data, where are we going?_

 _-This is an empty region of deep space according to the Federation maps sir, no stations, no asteroids, no planets._

 _-This could be a trap,_ warned Riker. _How could Deep Space 5 not detect them until now?_

 _-I'm picking up numerous jamming signals along with some unidentified background radiation. It could be a natural phenomenon hiding this particular spot from the sensor._

 _-Will our own communication suffer?_ Asked Picard, seating down once again.

 _-There are adjustments to do so we can communicate outside the pocket, but no one outside should be able to detect us._

With a small nod, the captain prompt Data to do the adjustments.

Picard was reviewing all they had to do before getting out of warp. But as the console was indicating him, everyone was getting into place. The security teams were spreading to key points, the vital areas were protected or under heavy surveillance. And soon their communication would be fully operational. They had 14 minutes before the battle. That would be an eternity. With a serene tone, he ordered

 _-Number one. Battle station._

* * *

The Enterprise-E brutally emerged out of warp, the massive space ship ready to battle with all its strength and fire-power. But there was nothing. Nothing but empty space.

 _-Mister Laforge, what are we looking at?_

The black chief engineer was analysing every bit of information the Enterprise was giving him. Despite being top of the line, the sensors had serious difficulties reading anything, but Laforge was not a man to let machines alone in their predicament. With expertise, he tuned worked his station until he got a clear data to present to the bridge.

 _-No trace of any Borg activity captain. The jamming has ceased and only the strong background noise remain. Looks like residual radiation bombardment from a supernova._

 _-Any sign of any station Laforge!_ Curtly interrupted Picard.

 _-Nothing yet sir... Wait, I'm picking up something. Looks like... debris. I'm unable to be certain of what. I'm picking up several debris fields heading in different directions. Could be the result of an explosion._

Riker raised an eyebrow.

 _-That's not like the Borg to waste material, and the message was saying that they were on board._

 _-I don't like this number one. Remain on yellow alert, we'll search the debris. Inform Deep Space 5 of our discoveries, and make sure we weren't just lured away._

 _-Captain! I'm picking up something! It's... I think it's a distress signal._

 _-Survivors?_

 _-A shuttle sir, it's hard to tell with all those interferences._

 _-Can we contact them?_

 _-Yes sir, but the distance and the background radiation may make things difficult._

 _-Commander Data, make an approach, but be ready for evasive manoeuvres. Mister Laforge... establish contact._

The captain got up, straightening his uniform and approached the front window. With a clear voice, he declared.

 _-This is captain Picard, of the USS Enterprise. Identify yourself._

Nothing. Picard looked at his chief engineer, still trying to clear the comm.

 _-Unidentified shuttle, do you read me, this is/_

An image suddenly appeared on the screen. Two women, clad in what seemed to be a hybrid of space suit and military armour were staring at the bridge from the inside of a space shuttle. One had a bulky black and red armour, strapped with pockets and several layers of protection while the other was wearing a slender white and blue suit, seemingly skin tight but undoubtedly reinforced. Both had a full helmet that was hiding their face.

 _-I'm reading you captain, loud and clear,_ said the black clad woman.

 _-Identify yourself._

 _-This is Commander Shepard, Alliance military, Council Spectre. And this is..._ She hesitated a second. _She's my associates. We're stranded on a shuttle._

 _-Alliance military?_ Picard wondered under his breath. _Did you had any contact with the Federation?_

 _-The what?_

 _-The Federation of planets._

 _-Never heard of it. Are you going to help us or not?_

Despite her visibly dire situation, she was quite confrontational. But Picard wasn't impressed.

 _-We received a distress call warning us of Borg presence inside a station._

 _-Yeah, you're late to the party. We disposed of them one or two days ago._

Everyone on the bridge looked at each other in confusion and disbelief. Picard himself found it hard to believe.

 _-Disposed?_

 _-Listen, I'd love to chat but we ran out of oxygen for a good while and our personal reserves are not going to last long. How about we chat face to face. I assume you have a ship nearby._

 _-Miss Shepard,_ the captain declared with growlingly tense tone, _you mentioned a Borg invasion. Deep Space 5 is currently on high alert, warning all federation ships of a possible invasion. We have diverted course to investigate, I demand that you explain what has happened!_

At that moment, the white clad woman put her hand on the shoulder of her partner, stopping her from retorting. The former considered a moment, then shrugged the hand off and leant back.

 _-Captain Picard,_ answered the other one much more calmly. _We are the only survivors of the station, and we had to detonate it to destroy the Borg inside. I have recorded the entire ordeal, and I'm willing to negotiate this information._

 _-To negotiate? Against what?_

 _-First, come pick us up. Then, we can consider our return in more familiar space._

The two women began to argue silently, visibly caught in a radio discussion. Similarly, Picard ordered the sound to be cut as he turned to the rest of his crew.

Riker was the first to speak.

 _-They aren't Borg at least, but I don't know if I buy their story._

 _-Me neither number one. Counsellor, any input?_

 _-The woman in black is especially aggressive captain, but I don't think she's lying. She just don't want you to feel like you have her cornered. The woman in white... she is slippery. But I don't think neither have any intention of harming us, at least not consciously._

 _-I see no reference of any alliance military or spectre council in our data base,_ added Data. _However the spreading of the debris field indicate some kind of explosion did destroyed the installation around 40 hours ago._

 _-It doesn't matter,_ replied the counsellor. _They aren't Borg, and they are running out of air. We should rescue them._

 _-Agreed_ simply said Riker.

 _-Mister Laforge,_ asked the Captain, _any signs of an ambush or borg activities?_

 _-No sir, nothing but debris around the shuttle._

He turned round and faced the two armoured women again. They were visibly waiting for him.

 _-Very well. You are authorized to dock the shuttle in the Enterprise, but you will surrender to our custody for interrogation._

 _-We will cooperate as far as our orders allows us too, and will not engage in any aggressive action unless forced to,_ simply replied the white one.

The communication was cut. Although the tone remained friendly and courteous, the white one wasn't budging an inch on the discussion, taking full advantage of the Enterprise moral obligation to help them. The captain didn't liked it one bit.

 _-Number one take the bridge, I'll welcome our new guests._

 _-What do you think they are? Soldiers from an unknown civilisation?_

 _-Could be, but it could still be a trap. This isn't the best circumstances for a first contact but if indeed they fought off the Borg, they could be either a great threat or a potential ally. Continue to scan the area, and report to deep space 5. Warn me if you or they find anything._

 _-I will captain._

 _-Commander Troi, Lieutenant Daniels, with me._

The three officers entered the turbolift, and prepared to meet the two mysterious soldiers.


	7. Chapter 6: Weaponised First contact

The console biped, confirming the reception of coordinates. Lauren simply acknowledged it without a sound, manoeuvring the shuttle around and heading for the rendez-vous point. She still had difficulties understanding everything the console was telling her, but the piloting was relatively easy. Besides her, Sarah was slowly recovering from her Asari trance. As soon as they got in the shuttle, they knew they had to make every bit of their limited resource count, so, Sarah plunged into a meditative state she had learned on Thessia, the homeworld of the Asari.

It was one thing they didn't have in common, at least.

The two days had been strenuous, for both of them. Even putting their information together, they only came to the conclusion that somehow, they have had similar experience in the past, knew the same people, went to the same places, except some variations. They both had little idea on how they got here, and they both disliked the other cordially. So rather than waste oxygen arguing, Sarah had her trance and Lauren studied the ships functionalities.

And of course, as soon as Sarah woke up, she had to conflict with Lauren. It wasn't professional, Lauren had begun the negotiations, her associates should have helped her, not override her. And it was pissing her off.

 _-You really have a recording of the assault?_ She asked while trying to figure out how to maintain a direction toward her objective without crashing on the debris.

 _-I have._

 _-If you're going to give it to them, that's going to be a problem._

 _-Don't worry, I'm deleting the parts about the Eezo, the Prometheus and other classified informations._

 _-Yeah, delete the parts about me too. You may want to rub shoulders with those guys, but I'm in no rush to die because they saw what I was capable of._

 _-They are about the only chance of survival we have._

 _-That's no reason to kiss their ass._

Sarah didn't kept the conversation going. She was tired, physically and mentally, too much to enter another argument with Cutie Pie. The Asari trance may have allowed them to spare some air, but it had its drawbacks too. While in her state, she could... try to reach her deepest memories. The idea was to meld with herself, to throw away any mention of time progression, of distant or near past and drown herself in the pure essence of her own experience. That way, she could feel the presence of her friends besides her, the warmth of their friendship, and their love. She could also feel the bitterness of all those she couldn't have saved, but chose not to linger in the darkest places of her mind. And now that she was awake, she was alone again.

The haze had dissipated and she was now fully aware. The other one was piloting them to the rendez-vous point fluidly, so she just checked their own equipment. Her weapons were fine, and all thermoclips had cooled down. The Valkyrie had took a beating, but her owner had visibly put it back in working order during her trance. She was N7 after all.

 _-They're humans,_ plainly stated Cutie pie

 _-Looks like it._

 _-How is that possible?_

 _-I read that humans may have been captured by slavers before we were fully developed. And that maybe human colonies happened to be elsewhere, not knowing they were from Earth._

 _-That's a lot of maybe,_ she sneered.

 _-Whatever the reason, they look human. But I don't think they're Alliance either._

 _-How perceptive. Coming out the debris now... Wow... That's definitely not Alliance._

The space ship Enterprise appeared before them. It looked like a giant saucer, it was hard estimating its size in space, to which was attached two enormous rods, at least as long as the saucer itself. The parallel rods looked like propulsion, but it was nothing like they had ever known, in any design they had ever seen. To Lauren, it was a shock, but to Sarah, it was just another mystery.

 _-That thing doesn't even look like build to go in atmosphere. Is that a battle cruiser?_

 _-I don't see any weapons, none that I recognize at least. I don't even see the docks_

 _-They're transmitting us the docking permission right now. The automated system should take over, but I prefer manual._

 _-As long as you don't kill us. So... Let's meet our saviours._

Guided by the computer, Lauren approached the enormous ship. Their flight path made them gliding around the saucer, positioning them between it and the propulsion. There, two large docking bays were open to space, yet you could already see inside people waiting.

 _-Looks like a force field,_ commented Techie.

 _-Hanhan._

 _-You realise there's gravity inside that ship._

 _-I know._

Sarah held back a sigh, there was no point in infuriating her companion. She just hoped that she knew what she was doing, other than clearly enjoying it. Sarah herself loved a good ride, but had a more... practical approach to it. She could almost feel a giant grin on Cutie Pie's face as she was manoeuvring the unfamiliar shuttle to the opening. The computer advised to let it take care of the docking, or otherwise reduce speed. A very bad thing to do to Lauren.

She accelerated a little, just enough to make Techie and the welcoming committee nervous, and passed through the Force field like a fish breaks the surface of the water. Immediately, the gravity grabbed the shuttle, shaking it down and pulling it to the ground with its incredible hold. The whole shuttle threatened to tear apart or crash, but that wasn't enough to break the pilot's concentration. With dexterous hands, she compensated immediately, typing on the console without missing a once despite the tremendous shakedown. And with a breath, the shuttle was stable.

It landed like a feather exactly at the position indicated by the coordinates.

 _-Was that really necessary?_

 _-We don't need them as much as they think. We both know it, now they know it too._

 _-I never thought you'd be one to enter the who's got the bigger one contest._

 _-Shut up Techie, you know I'm right._

Yes, she was right, but forcing their way into a ship wasn't the best way to ensure cooperation. Then again, she didn't seemed to be one to cooperate. Sarah wondered if she should join her partner in this show of strength, a way that could backfire very badly, or shutting her down, at the risk of sabotaging both approach.

She had the data, she was leading the dance. For now.

With a loud whistle, the shuttle expelled the staled air and filled the cabin and its own reserves with fresh oxygen. The two women did likewise, opening the valves of their suit to purge. They would need pressurized oxygen to actually be able to refill their own reserves, but at least they weren't breathing their own recycled breath anymore.

None of them took their helmet off however, and they were fully armed, if empty handed, when the doors of the shuttle opened.

* * *

Seven people were waiting for them, all wearing black jumpsuit-like uniforms with grey on their shoulders and an insignia placed near the heart, in the form of an arrow. The only thing that was distinguishing those uniforms were their collars, bearing three different colours. First to be seen was the one who introduced himself as Captain Picard, the bald man staring at them with an intense stern glare, wearing a red collar. To his right was a long haired woman, oozing with serenity and wearing a gentle smile along with her blue collar. To his left, a blond man, clearly ready to jump at the first sign of trouble, and judging from the looks the four behind him were giving him, he was in charge of the muscle. They were all wearing yellow collars.

All were humans, and all tensed when the two left the shuttle. Some of them slightly approached their hand to a strange remote-control-looking device on their waist.

Sarah broke the short silence first.

 _-I am commander Sarah Shepard. It's a pleasure to meet you in person captain._

 _-We do not abandon sentients stranded in space,_ replied Picard without blinking. _It is however my ship, and I expect you to not begin any trouble._

 _-We do not intend to. I believe you have brought a recording device to transfer the data._

 _-First, I would ask you to surrender you weapons and follow us into custody._

In a flash, Lauren had her pistol in her hand, pointing at the group, immediately followed by Sarah. The security personnel put their hand on their remotes, but Picard, without looking away, shouted

 _-Restrain your men mister Daniels!_

With a moment of hesitation, the yellow collared men slowly disarmed.

 _-We're not here to cause trouble,_ stated Lauren with a deadly cold tone, _I don't see why we should part with our weapons._

 _-We don't shoot on unarmed benefactors either,_ added Sarah, lowering her gun.

Slowly, Lauren accompanied her. Sarah bit her lip, the tension was at peak.

 _-I propose a compromise. We'll stay armed, but we won't leave the docks._

 _-Unacceptable,_ answered back the captain barely containing his fury. _Threats to this ship will not be tolerated._

 _-We have no intention of harming anyone, but we must protect ourselves._

 _-So do we,_ said the woman with a soothing voice. _I'm sure you understand our position, we know nothing of you or your intent. Can you blame us for our precautions?_

 _-You're not the outnumbered one here lady,_ sharply retorted Lauren.

 _-But we are clearly outgunned._

The point seemed not to be lost on the black clad woman. Her partner took the opportunity.

 _-This,_ said Sarah presenting her pistol, _is as much an insignia as a weapon. An officer must never part with it nor neglect it. While powerful, it cannot pierce any hull or do significant damage on non-organic features. No matter how much you press, we will not disarm, but we may part with our more destructive equipment. As a sign of good will._

The whole assembly looked at each other. Lauren at Sarah, probably furious, yet cooperative, The woman to the captain, nodding encouragingly to her tensed superior. The later took his time to consider the proposition, then finally declared.

 _-If you accept to leave behind all weapons other than your pistol, and agree to be scanned, I will consider the conditions satisfactory._

 _-We'll be back in a moment._

Both commanders took a few step back, never breaking eye contact with the lot. They were all tensed, except the woman who had remained remarkably calm throughout the whole exchange. She was however glancing to Sarah repeatedly, making her... uncomfortable. Through the radio, Lauren whispered in her ear.

 _-This is bad._

 _-We were in trouble the moment we got in this ship, but we have no choice._

 _-Give me your Valiant, I'm going to rig them._

 _-Take the Eezo core too, I don't want it to be scanned._

 _-Keep an eye out and be ready for anything._

As Cutie Pie was placing a mine on their stash, and another discreetly on the side of the shuttle, Sarah noticed that Daniels was whispering to Picard. By their faces, Daniels was giving him advice, and the captain was listening with great attention. When they finished to put explosive mines on weapons of mass casualties, they got back to... peace talking.

A yellow man, without any apparent equipment other than some sort of heavy remote, approached them, his eyes shifting between them and the screen on the tool.

 _-You said that you recorded the attack of the Borg on a station,_ started Picard, _and their defeat by your hands. What was the station, and why were you there?_

 _-We do not know the answer to your first question,_ Sarah replied, _and the answer to the second is confidential._

 _-How did the Borg infest the station. Was there a mothership nearby?_

 _-There was nothing outside the station,_ answered Lauren, eyeing the scanning man as he turned around her, _they were already here when we took action. Just give us a ship and we'll be out of your way._

 _-We have no "ship" to spare at that moment, and I would advise you not to underestimate the Borg. They will be back, and considering the advancement of your equipment, your civilisation will be targeted for... assimilation._

 _-Don't think so, we didn't left one alive._

 _-The Borg possess some sort of hive mind,_ intervened Daniels, _whatever one drone learns is shared with the entire collective. Did they assimilate anything of yours? Your ship or navigation system, anything that could reveal the position of your homeworld?_

 _-If so,_ added the captain, _it is in your best interest to fully cooperate with us as soon as possible, so we can find and destroy the threat._

Both commanders looked at each other in silence. This was bad news, for if their pod didn't contained any classified information that could have been downloaded, it may have had some information on how they got here. The Borg could then follow the trail up and reach Council space. Their negotiating position wasn't in their favour to begin with, but now their host had not only their fate, but possibly the fate of dozens of colonies in their hands.

The man handling the scans took a step back and nodded to the Captain.

 _-Very well,_ said Picard. _As per our agreement you will give us whatever data and information you have, however we do not have the means to send you back._

 _-We will need to contact our people, but so far no result on our personal communicators. We may need to use your communication system to warn our people and devise a rendez-vous point for our return, along with an unmarked map of the region._

 _-Our communications are under strict control considering the situation. Until we can be sure it is no Borg invasion, it would be best if you considered staying put, in our custody. But let me be very clear,_ he added, putting the weight of his rank in every word, _I will not tolerate the slightest risk for this ship or my crew, and I give you a choice. You can either cooperate, surrender all your weapons and be confined to comfortable quarters while you wait, or you can keep them, and be thrown to the brig, both for our safety and yours._

Lauren twitched, but didn't utter a word. Sarah only picked a data storage the size of a pin head from her left arm and gave it to the yellow man with the scanning tool.

 _-Brig it is,_ she said for both of them.

 _-Then you shall be accommodated._ Picard grazed his insignia and said out loud. _Mister Laforge, beam them in._

A shining light surrounded the two commanders, and instant later, they were separated.

* * *

Lauren found herself in a cell, quite a spacious one, around 4 meters long with a bunk. The cell had no bars however, one of the wall just wasn't here, wide open to the cell room from where she could see other cell blocks, but no one else. Carefully, she approached her hand to the opening and felt without surprise another force field.

 _-Both of you, welcome to the Enterprise._

The unsarcastic voice came from a woman with golden hair falling to her neck. She walked in Lauren's view and stopped to face her and a cell just beside her. She was a yellow collar too.

 _-I'm ensign Kellogg, and I will be in charge of you for the duration of your stay._

 _-Home cooking service? Feels like home already._

 _-I meant,_ replied the ensign, controlling herself, _that I will see that you do not lack any food or water, and that you do not escape. The forcefields closing your cells are only acting as walls for now, but it can be electrified should the need arise._

 _-Don't bang on the door,_ said Techie from the other cell. _We've been out of food for a while now, a meal would be nice. And we've also been promised a map._

 _-It will be arranged. You'll be monitored at all time._

And then, she simply walked away to an area of the room Lauren couldn't see.

Soon after that, a hole opened in a wall and a spew out a spongy bar in a napkin. Time to eat. Time to reveal the faces. Both commanders had tried to follow the rulebook of first contact to the letter until now, not showing their faces, not giving them any relevant technology. Lauren considered fasting until they could access communication when she heard Techie taking her helmet off in the other cell.

 _-What are you doing Techie? Too hungry to care about common sense in first contact situations?_

 _-There is defiance, and there's stupid stubbornness Cutie Pie._

 _-That stupid stubbornness allowed you to keep your gun._

 _-I'm sure starving yourself to death will help in this situation. It will help me at least._

Now she knew what Jack was feeling when Miranda opened her mouth. She gobbled up her rage and focused on something constructive. There was no way to know how long they would be kept in the brig, and pirating the ship wouldn't be wise right now. Not as long as there was a chance they'll cooperate. Lauren didn't liked the feeling of powerlessness she had, it was always better to keep the situation fully under control. And right now, she was not.

She took her helmet off and licked the food. It was awful, but very nutritional. Having eaten more nutrient in bars than actual meals in her life, she had began to be quite the expert on the subject. Whoever those guys were, they were incredibly polite. They could have "beamed" them here, or in a place surrounded by soldiers, the moment they got their weapons on the ground, but they continued the conversation. They even negotiated, allowing them to keep their gun, even if she had to be persuasive in the gun-in-your-face kind of way.

Sure, they were prisoners now, but considering it all started with them gasping for air and only a tempered record, they did good.

Throwing herself on the bunk she chew her spongy meal lost in thoughts. She hated waiting.

 _-Hey,_ said Techie from the other side of the wall. _Something's wrong._

 _-The food's not poisoned, I checked_ , she answered her mouth half full

 _-I'm talking about the map. Look at your wall._

Lauren got up and stared at the walls of her cell. Just beside the "opening" was a console. Typing randomly on it brought up a star map of the sector. And something was wrong indeed.

 _-That's... not the Perseus Veil._

 _-Not even close, I don't recognize the place._

 _-Is there a way to zoom out?_

Like answering to vocal command, the map now showed a larger portion of the system. Still, nothing was ringing a bell.

 _-Show Galaxy,_ said Techie, soon followed by Lauren.

The map then showed the entire Galaxy, or whatever portions it knew. The map wasn't complete, in fact, only a quarter of it was well mapped, the rest was incomplete. It was hard to recognize anything. Behind her, Techie was whispering several command, trying to zoom on some portions, asking more detail on some regions. Lauren wasn't going to search wildly, and began a methodological approach, looking for a familiar zone, and then figuring out the rest from it.

But during the ten minutes of intense research, she had found nothing. The map wasn't even close to looking like the ones she used regularly, except for the super black holes in the middle. Maybe it was because those people never found out any relays, and developed on their own. Still, to have explored so much and so far, they must have had the means to travel beyond light speed more efficiently than them. It was strange that they never made contact with a society so widespread as Council space, or at least someone in the Terminus System.

A trembling voice called her from the other room.

 _-Lauren... look for Saturn._

 _-What?_

 _-Say "Pin point Saturn on the map"_

She did, and the map locked around a point. Zooming in, she had a beautiful view of Saturn and its rings. Their Saturn. In fact their whole system, along with every single planet and moon, all with the same names. And even Earth.

 _-How.. why do they have the same name as us?_

 _-It get worse. Look. No relays._

 _-Maybe they just don't know it's there..._

 _-They got every moon of every planet right, there is no way they could miss Charon not being an actual moon. And the other clusters, they're not at the same place. Or not there at all!_

The soldier opened her omnitool and brought up the localisation of Tuchanka, Thessia, Palaven and other key planets. Those position were approximately calculated by trigonometry, linking the Earth and the centre of the Galaxy with the point you were trying to look for. Crude, but easy to do with any map. And there was indeed nothing. Whole clusters were well away from the predicted position, far too much to be a simple error. Yet the coordinates were correct, the areas mapped, Earth was there. Something was wrong, it was either them or the whole Galaxy

One thing was for sure.

They weren't in Kansas anymore.


End file.
